Everything was broken
by Schrecksenmeister
Summary: Peridot's landing didn't go well and she's pissed off.


Everything was broken.

The supposedly impenetrable cells? Broken. Destabilizers? Broken. Her very own warship? Broken. Even the escape pod was broken. It's a miracle she survived the landing. Curse the stevens of Earth (or maybe just a single steven. Who's also apparently a significant figure from this backwater planet's history if Jasper is to believed), curse the Crystal Gems, whoever they are (though it doesn't really matter much, all that Peridot cared about was that they were undermining Yellow Diamond's authority, and, even more importantly, breaking pretty much everything that belonged to her). Curse Jasper while we're at it too (even though she's much higher in the hierarchy and technically her orders shouldn't be questioned), none of this would've happened if she'd strictly adhere to the protocol (admittedly the protocol didn't mention anything about not nuking anything using Peridot's ship – or getting it involved in general - but it was pretty much obvious the rules were at least heavily implying it's better for the common good to not do so). Peridot was about to curse the Yellow Diamond too (for not assigning someone showing more approval toward the rules and less towards following personal vendettas other than Peridot's) when she realized that, to begin with, it'd be a blasphemy against all she stood for, and, additionally, that spending too much time ranting won't help her in a presumably hostile environment. Quite likely full of wild stevens. Or other horrid creatures native to such feral worlds. What's the most important at the moment is to retrieve as much as possible from the accursed escape pod.

It took a while to recover anything worthwhile from the crash site, even with Peridot's skills. Admittedly it'd be all much easier if she wasn't so nervous about this situation. She was way too nervous in general ever since all of this has started. It was supposed to be a simple repair on a half-forgotten planet. It all escalated way too fast. She wished her career would advance at 1/10 of this speed.

After almost an hour of work, Peridot gathered everything she managed to salvage. Not too much, frankly. Definitely not enough supplies to consider the situation fortunate. Just a few tools, some potentially useful spare parts, and coordinates to reach a few key locations until a means of communication with the Homeworld would be established that she was supposed to upload to her personal processing unit in case of the pod's malfunction.

Now that she thought of it, establishing a means of communication will require reaching one of those destinations anyway. Not much of a help. Is there even a point in trying to do so, though? Does the Homeworld care enough about its field agent tasked with repairing some long forgotten machinery?

Such bizarre thoughts (almost definitely the effect of this planet's unhealthy atmosphere and the crash). Obviously it does. There's no way it wouldn't. Faith in the system was a pillar of Peridot's worldview… of every good citizen's worldview, even. There's no point in questioning that, especially not now. At least nobody's personal vendetta will get in the way of work this time… unless Jasper would decide to show up out of blue to assist her again (assuming she survived the crash). Though this probably didn't seem very likely. Quite a relief, really, her presence was unnerving and didn't really help much with fulfilling the Homeworld's goals . How did she even get so far while showing total disregard for any rules, did they have no standards back when she started?

Peridot launched her screen. The data she amassed didn't provide much information about the local population, but it seemed they're largely inactive at night. If she can act fast enough, she'll be able to reach the Kindergarten within four, maybe five days. Manually reactivating it will probably take a good while. Especially after the damage done there recently. Maybe if some more flask robonoids survived the crash it'd be easier. Right now none were operative. Not per say at least. A shame, really. They were her favored method of getting pretty much anything done so far, the frame was surprisingly durable and all-embracing for such a simple machine.

Peridot was about to leave when something else crawled out of the wreckage.

A single flask robonoid, part of the pod's damaged repair system Peridot didn't even consider worthy of salvaging, considering how basic its components were. It was battered, one of its legs didn't seem to work too well, making the automaton shake. But it still tried to fulfill its function, regardless of the damage. It was waiting for orders.

"Why do you follow me?", she asked, quite annoyed by the situation. This might attract the natives, whoever they wouldn't be - humans, stevens, whatever, the Homeworld's records didn't seem to reflect the planet's current state anyway. Or, even worse, the rebels, they're pretty backward with technology from what she has seen but will easily recognize the robonoids. She can hide her own activity quite well, but unpredictable elements such as this wreck make it significantly harder.

The robonoid did not answer. It couldn't. Obviously. Invalid voice command. Their ai is limited. It's a stretch to even call this ai and if in any given situation (presumably other than the current one, but even this is questionable) it's quite likely Peridot would get in a fight with anyone who'd insist on calling this ai. How much she'd give for being able to work with some ai right now. It'd definitely make her a bit less nervous. Presence of technology was comforting.

The robonoid was still following her. Peridot kicked the machine, hoping it'll be enough to deactivate it. Sturdy construction prevailed and the kick didn't change anything, though it seemed like the damaged leg might soon stop working altogether.

"Why do you keep coming back? Don't you see that's all you can get from me? You won't be appreciated. You exist to serve without hope for any reward, and now you're incapable even of that! Simple machinery. Single task. Nothing more." She was getting quite annoyed with this. Was the machine trying to mock her? No, no, no, that was impossible. She's getting paranoid already (to be frank, last few weeks were significantly more stressful than any other period in her career before, though. And it didn't even seem she'll be compensated in any form for this). She looked again at the robonoid. Once again, no reply. Not like Peridot expected to hear one, anyway.

To be fair she probably should've expected that something like this might be the case. No matter how mistreated the robonoids were, they kept coming back to their master. That was all they could do. They were made this way. Not able to learn anything else. Helpless as soon as the means of communication with their controller were lost. Which reminded Peridot of her current situation. In a highly uncomfortable way, unworthy of an agent of the Homeworld.

Nothing was going as planned as of late and the Homeworld didn't seem to show much remorse because of it. She's just a cog in the machine. There were hundreds of Peridots. All over the galaxy. Fixing machines the Homeworld left on different backwater planets long before Peridot herself was born. She didn't really know for how long this was happening. Admittedly she didn't know much about history in general, that was not her job. And people who dwell into it too much are hard to work with anyway, taking a brief look at Jasper is enough. Though maybe studying history would provide answers to some questions which afflict her currently? Maybe somewhere out there it's explained why the likes of Peridot will always obey the rules, no matter how battered they get in the process?

The robonoid was visibly slowing down. It'll probably stop working altogether once they'll reach terrain more difficult to cross. Peridot decided to do something completely despicable for a proud officer under Yellow Diamond's command.

She picked up the broken machine and placed it on her shoulder, like she often did with countless other fully operational robonoids before.

"I'll fix you. I promise. Come, there's a long way ahead." She knew the machine won't reply. But something about it was oddly comforting. "I guess… we're pretty similar at the moment, little buddy."

The damaged robonoid's eye was flickering.

She'll fix it. In due time. Right after finally setting things straight for once. She'll reach the Kindergarten as planned. But looking for answers will be equally vital as the repairs she was supposed to perform. Or more, depending on what'll be uncovered.

Everything was broken, but if things go well, soon nothing will be. Time to set things straight for once.


End file.
